Machu Picchu

Today (Friday) is a beautiful day, although not so much in terms of weather. . . more so because it is Friday and I have absolutely nothing to do and I finished my long week of midterms so I am feeling relieved to be done with that.  I think my tests went ok, but I guess I will just have to wait and see.  Basically my only plan for today is to write this blog post about my trip to Machu Picchu, so here goes.

Last Thursday I awoke at 4:30 am and my host parents most kindly drove me to my friend Lauren's house so that her host parents could drive us to the airport in Callao.  We are lucky to have such caring and dedicated host parents who will wake up at such an awfully early time of day!  Generally at this time of day I am not particularly hungry but for some reason I was super hungry which led to me first buying a donut from Dunkin Donuts and then a personal pizza from Papa John's. What was I thinking?  I do not believe I have ever had pizza at 6am, but I most definitely enjoyed it.  :-)  On the flight to Cusco, I was in the very back row of the plane, which was a first, and I was next to my friends Jenna and Laura, with Sarah and Ana across the aisle from me.  The flight was incredibly fast, being only about an hour long, so before I knew it we were in the Cusco airport and on the way to our hotel, which was called Hotel Royal Inca.  What a beautiful hotel!  Our first activity upon arriving was drinking mate de coca, which is a tea made from coca leaves, the same leaves used to make cocaine.  It is supposed to help with the effects of altitude sickness.  After tea, we went up to check out our rooms.  My friend Sydney and I were in room 507, the top floor of the hotel, which was sweet because we discovered that there was a roof/terrace area and immediately check out the view from atop the hotel.  Cusco, as it turns out, is a much more attractive city that Lima, being in the mountains and possessing much lovelier architecture.  This whole day was set aside for adjusting to the altitude (Cusco is at about 11,000 ft about sea level), which means we had a ton of free time to explore and chill.  Sydney and I relaxed in our room for awhile and had a bit of a dance party (I had brought my tiny portable speaker) and ate snacks and chatted.  Eventually we met up with Jenna, Megan, and Laura to venture out for some food.  We wandered down to the Plaza de Armas, which was bustling with tourist and people trying to sell all sort of things to tourists.  The restaurant that we went to was called Kusikuy, which mean happy guinea pig in Quechua, and it was recommended in Laura's travel guide book.  For 20 soles ($7) I had a veggie and noodle soufle, chicken soup, lomo saltado, and mixed juice.  Needless to say I was a bit full by the end of the meal.  Once our bellies were satisfied, we went in search of a market for some shopping.  I almost bought some shoes that were really cute - they were flats decorated with embroidery - but I decided I didn't really need them.  I did buy a couple other things, but I'm not going to say what because I intend to give them as gifts and I do not want to spoil the surprise. ;-)  The one effect that the altitude has on everyone is that is makes you tired, so after shopping we were due for naps before a "concert" of traditional Peruvian instruments.  I found it particularly interesting because there were a lot of types of flutes, and I even got to try some of them - very different than playing my flute.  In the evening I played Euchre with Laura, Sydney and Megan - a very close game, and I even had a loner!  Thus ends day 1.  The beds in the hotel were super comfy and I was super sleepy which equals a great combination. :-)

A view of Cusco from the hotel roof

Me and Sydney

Day 2: tour of the sacred valley.  Surprisingly, I woke up before my alarm, showered and headed down for hotel breakfast.  I would like to emphasize the high quality of this breakfast, in all seriousness.  There was fruit, potatoes with spices, fried camote (sweet potato), mini chocochip muffins, cereal, and pick your own omelet ingredients.  Amazing!  The day's activities began at a ruins site nearby called Saqsaywaman - the name is about all I can tell you about it because I did not pay so much attention to the guide who explained its purpose...oops :-)  From there we stopped at a llama reserve and got to feed the llamas.  I wanted to get a sweet picture with a llama, but unfortunately I was a bit nervous about getting too close to them because they spit at you if they get annoyed.  After the llamas we stopped at a bakery in Pisac that is famous for its empanadas.  They were pretty good, but I'm not really the biggest fan of empanadas in general - they don't seem like anything special to me.  Our next stop was the ruins of Pisac - we went on about an hour long trek, which was a doozy because even though it was at a lower altitude than Cusco, we were still pretty high up and had to do a lot of climbing stairs and such.  The view was definitely worth it though and all the energy expended made me plenty hungry for lunch, which was a delicious buffet.  Following lunch we stopped at a typical "pub" to taste some chicha amarilla, a type of beer made out of corn that was really important to the incas (and still is important).  Then, we went to our final ruins site called Ollantaytambo where we climbed up a very steep staircase and almost got rained on (the sky looked very threatening).  Our day of touring ended when we reached the train station and got on our way to Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of Machu Picchu.  After settling in our rooms, I wandered out with my friend Kevin to find some food and buy a giant bottle of water.  As a little side note, I think I spent more money on water on this trip than I have ever spent in my life because there is no free tap water in Peru so you always have to buy bottled water and while it is not expensive, I consume a lot of water which means that it adds up.  Anyhow, Kevin and I walked around the town a little bit and then sat in a park chatting for awhile before going back to the hotel for some sleep to prepare for the big adventures of the following day.

Cusco as seen from Saqsaywaman

Laura and I representing Hope College!

Jenna and I during the Pisac trek

Day 3: M-m-m-m-machu Picchu!  Almost my entire group woke up at 4am to clima Wayna Picchu, which if you've seen the classical picture of Machu Picchu, you would recognize Wayna Picchu as the mountain peak rising in the background of the ruins.  Apparently the view of MP from WP is pretty sweet, but I was pretty satisfied just climbing up to MP.  Anyhow, I woke up at a normal time of day and ate breakfast and then my friends Kevin, Jenna, Sydney and I decided to walk to the top of Machu Picchu from our hotel.  As we were walking toward the base of the mountain, we saw an old man (at least in his 60s) running with a backpack and we were majorly impressed that he had the physique for such activity.  The trek up to MP was definitely not a piece of cake. There are two ways to go up: 1) follow the winding bus path which is a lot less steep but takes longer or 2) climb the many many stairs that making up the hiking path.  We did a combination of both, mostly climbing stairs but occasionally following the bus path when we hit an intersection with it in order to give our sore legs a break from the stairs and catch our breath.  When we reached the top, I was elated - it was amazing to look out and see how high we had climbed.  We met up with the rest of our group for a tour of Machu Picchu, though I will admit that I spent a lot more time just looking around and admiring the scenery than actually listening to the tour guide.  At the end of the tour, Laura and I sought out the spot where you can take the "classic" picture.  My camera battery had died by this point, but Laura is actually knowledgeable about photography and has a fancy pants camera, so she snapped some beautiful pictures.  Soon we met up with some other girls and decided to head back down to Aguas Calientes for some comida because they had not eaten since 4am other than small snack and by this time it was around 3pm!  As much as I enjoyed hiking up the mountain, I was extremely grateful to take a bus down!  After getting food and water in our bodies, we explored the market near our hotel for awhile and before meeting up with our program to hop a train back to Cusco.  Back in Cusco, Sydney and I ventured out to the Plaza de Armas for some food/ice cream and ended up at Bembo's, which is the Peruvian version of McDonald's or Wendy's, though personally I like it a lot better.  By the time we were getting ready for bed I was so exhausted I started babbling about random things and laughing at myself and I don't think I was making very much sense. :-)

Hiking toward Machu Picchu - you can just barely

 see the old man who went running past us

Mountains!

Victory!  We hiked all the way up!

Me, Kevin, Jenna, Sydney

Hope College friends!

Wayna Picchu is the mountain you see right behind our heads.

Day 4: Returning to Lima.  I enjoyed another delicious breakfast at the hotel and walked around Cusco a little bit more before it was time to return to Lima. Half our group was ill in some way or another, or so it seemed.  I don't know if the altitude was a contributing factor or if everyone was just worn out from lack of sleep and physical exertion.  Thankfully I felt just fine, though a bit warn out from all the hiking the day before.  When I got back to my house, as I was walking up to the door I heard really loud music and voices and sure enough there was a family party going on inside.  That was definitely a bit overwhelming to walk into a party after three days speaking and hearing almost all english and then having to jump back in and greet my entire extended family.  It was fun though.  My host uncle Marcelo tried to teach me various styles of dance and I was really awful at all of them.  I just kept staring at his feet trying to get the steps down, but they were not coming.  My host cousin danced the Huayño (I think that's what it's called) with my host sister and he was hilarious.  He got really into it!

I feel really blessed to have had the opportunity to experience Machu Picchu.  The vast majority of Peruvians have never been because it is too expensive for them, so I am thankful that I could witness the beauty of this ancient Incan city. Our creator really much be unimaginably powerful to have formed such large and immense and stunning mountains.